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Profiles: rogue traders

September 15 2011, 2:27pm, The Times

NICK LEESON

If previous rogue traders are anything to go by, notoriety and possibly even a Hollywood film await the person behind the $2 billion UBS fallout. Nick Leeson hit the headlines in 1995 when he single-handedly destroyed Barings Bank, which was 233 years old and proudly counted the Queen as a client.

Once at Barings he was appointed manager of a new operation in futures markets on the Singapore Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) and was making millions for them by betting on the future direction of the Nikkei Index.

But things began to unravel when he started making losses and set up a secret account to hide them. He began taking more risks to recoup his losses but problems spiralled out of control and he…